The full story...

Garnaut pans carbon tax critics

PETER CAVE: The Federal Government's former climate change adviser has fired another broadside at the critics of Labor's carbon tax.

Professor Ross Garnaut has compared people who say that Australia should wait for other countries to take action on climate change to those who argued it shouldn't participate in the Korean War.

The Government is still determined to get its carbon tax legislation through Parliament before the end of the year. It hopes that will give it a boost in the polls, which are still woeful for Labor.

A lift in Labor's numbers would also help dampen speculation that the former prime minister Kevin Rudd is angling for a return to the top job.

But Mr Rudd has handed a gift to mischief makers by referring to himself as prime minister on radio this morning.

Stephen Dziedzic reports from Canberra.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: Professor Garnaut is no longer on the Government payroll, but he's still a fierce advocate for the carbon tax that he helped to shape and when he appeared in front of the parliamentary committee scrutinising the tax he was clearly itching to take on its critics.

ROSS GARNAUT: Australian public discussion of climate change policy over recent times has been the locus of more elaborate and extreme distortion of reality and abuse of truth than I have seen in adult lifetime of interest in public policy.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: Professor Garnaut says that it's inaccurate to argue the largest polluters - China and the United States - are doing little to cut carbon emissions.

He also says it's wrong to say that Australia will not be able to gain financially from participating in the international carbon trading market until most other countries have entered it.

And he heaped scorn on those who argue that Australia should wait for other countries to act before pricing carbon.

ROSS GARNAUT: What if we had said at the time of the Korea War for example, well it will make no difference to the outcome of the war and that would have been a true statement, whether or not we send young men to die in Korea.

Fortunately we didn't formulate the question in that way.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: But Coalition Senators and MPs weren't impressed by the analogy.

The member for Dawson, George Christensen, pressed Professor Garnaut to say exactly what action the major and developing economies are taking to fight climate change.

GEORGE CHRISTENSEN: Isn't it a distortion of reality to state that carbon dioxide and emissions in China will increase for the foreseeable future. I'm not talking about intensity, I'm talking about emissions.

ROSS GARNAUT: It is, I say very clearly in my report that there will be an increase in emission in China for some years, in India for quite a while, total emissions will increase. In China they will not continue to increase for the foreseeable future. I foresee a time when Chinese emissions will fall absolutely.

GEORGE CHRISTENSEN: Is it a distortion of reality to state that in the United States of America there will be no nationwide carbon price?

ROSS GARNAUT: There will be no carbon price nationwide, I've said that very clearly but there will be very strong policies of other kinds and it is the reality that in the United States, they have probably now reached a peak or past a peak in emissions which is more than you can say about Australia.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: The next election is not due for two years, but according to the polls, Labor would be given a drubbing if it was held right now. An analysis of recent Newspoll results shows it's lagging behind the Coalition in every mainland state.

The deputy Opposition leader Julie Bishop was happy to expand on Labor's woes on Fairfax Radio this morning.

JULIE BISHOP: Julia Gillard's lost the trust of the Australian people across the board. Julia Gillard through her own actions, her own words, is seen as untrustworthy and contrived. Tony Abbott's doing what a good Opposition leader should do, he is identifying the failings of this government and I have to say this government's give him so much material to work with.

STEPHEN DZIEDZIC: The polls have also fuelled a constant hum of speculation that the former prime minister Kevin Rudd is plotting a comeback.

That won't be helped by this slip of the tongue from Mr Rudd on ABC Local Radio in Orange this morning.

ABC RADIO ANNOUNCER: Very quickly Mr Rudd, the latest Nielsen poll has Labor winning the federal election if you were brought back as leader. Are you Labor's best chance at winning?

KEVIN RUDD: You know something I'm a very happy little vegemite being prime minister, ah, being foreign minister of Australia. Your question was about being prime minister, there you've caught me, getting off the plane jet lagged.

And as for the Prime Minister, as I've said before and said in the United States, I fully support the Prime Minister.

Extra Video

Images

Click an image to enlarge

From the Archives

Sri Lanka is now taking stock of the country's 26-year-long civil war, in which the UN estimates as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed. This report by the ABC's Alexander McLeod in 1983 looks at the origins of the conflict as it was just beginning.